I've contributed as a correspondent to the Dallas Morning News, NBC Sports, and Boston.com, covering international/European soccer, MLS, and the New England Patriots between all three outlets. I also served as an editor of FanSided.com's Boston Bruins blog, writing daily news as well as discussing trade and contract scenarios.

The Whistle Sports Network Agrees to MLS-KickTV Content Partnership

Major League Soccer and KickTV recently revealed a new content partnership, collaboration and distribution agreement with The Whistle Sports Network based upon its latest involvement establishing an Xbox application.

On Jan. 1, Whistle began its YouTube efforts in hopes of catering to the digital generation of fans and athletes. Since that point, it has jumped to more than 6.8 million subscribers, 140 channel partners and more than one billion views. It’s the most popular sports property in the YouTube world, and its expansion to Xbox took place this month.

The Whistle’s other professional league content partners include the Major League Lacrosse, NFL, NASCAR, Major League Baseball the PGA Tour, and AVP. Many have come to known Whistle by the eye-popping videos of trick shot experts Dude Perfect and Brodie Smith, along with freestyle soccer phenoms Indi Cowie and STRSkill School.

KickTV is a prime area on YouTube for in-depth soccer coverage, boasting more than 1.1 million regular subscribers, 13 channels and over 110 million views. KickTV provides substantial MLS material to their viewers.

Jeff Urban, The Whistle’s co-founder and president, spoke about the arrangement between all parties: KickTV, MLS and his own company.

On spreading The Whistle across multiple sports leagues:

We’re talking to all the leagues, all the time. As you well know, each league has their own personality, and each of the deals we’ve done with the leagues have taken on a little different form, a little different shape.

The main goal of the MLS-KickTV-The Whistle collaboration:

We’ve found, with the evolution of KickTV and certainly the growth of MLS Digital, that out first opportunity with MLS was really going to be focused on the chance to distribute their content with an eye toward moving it out of the core endemic soccer fans, allowing their content to have a place to live and breathe in a more holistic sports environment than just the real hardcore soccer fan.

The Whistle’s soccer-based intentions as they continue to grow:

We are aiming to build today’s sports community, and the sports community today has to have soccer just because of foreign participation, perspective from the growth of pro sports leagues, domestically as well as internationally. And where we like to start is the best and the biggest. This particular relationship made all the sense in the world to lock in both the traditional league in MLS, as well as one of the dominant players in today’s soccer landscape, KickTV.

On the Whistle’s new Xbox existence:

You would download the Whistle sports app, in a way you would download it on your iPhone or iPad. Once you download the Whistle sports app, behind that app, you get the chance to get our content from, right now, about 22 or so of our partners. And it’s everything from trick shot guys, like Dude Perfect and Brodie Smith on the frisbee side, all the way to Major League Soccer, KickTV and a number of other league partners.

Importance of YouTube to The Whistle’s success:

We’ve been around, as we’ve pivoted our business plan, for a couple of years. We really then paused development and focused on our YouTube network. And from there, we’ve grown with the Xbox, which launched last Friday. In the 7 months since we’ve launched our YouTube network, it‘s grown significantly month-over-month. We’re just around 7 million subscribers on the network right now. We’re the fastest-growing sports network on the YouTube platform, so we’ve seen a great response.

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